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Full-Text Articles in Constitutional Law
Can The Accommodationist Achieve Pluralism?, Lisa Shaw Roy
Can The Accommodationist Achieve Pluralism?, Lisa Shaw Roy
Seattle University Law Review
This paper is based on my brief remarks on a panel dedicated to “reimagining the relationship between religion and law” and focuses on the U.S. Supreme Court's church and state jurisprudence. In particular, I ask whether an approach to the Establishment Clause known as accommodation is consonant with the larger concept of pluralism, particularly in the context of public religious symbols and displays, and offer some proposals and tentative conclusions. I propose two alternatives, signs and disclaimers, and tentatively conclude that the use of either might relieve the perceived tension between accommodation and pluralism.
A Call For Judicial Restraint: Federal Taxpayer Grievances Challenging Executive Action, Debra L. Lowman
A Call For Judicial Restraint: Federal Taxpayer Grievances Challenging Executive Action, Debra L. Lowman
Seattle University Law Review
This Article calls upon the Supreme Court to stay the Judiciary's hand in taxpayer grievances concerning purely executive action. Parts II and III of the Article provide the relevant background material for an understanding of the subject matter. Specifically, Part I recounts the evolution of taxpayer standing, taking the reader from the Supreme Court's decision in Frothingham to its counterpoint decision in Flast. Part III summarizes the Seventh Circuit's unprecedented decision in Freedom. Part IV demonstrates that taxpayer standing as conceived by the Freedom court does not conform to the standing paradigm formulated in Flast, and moreover, …
Compassion Inaction: Why President Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives Violate The Establishment Clause, Martha A. Boden
Compassion Inaction: Why President Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives Violate The Establishment Clause, Martha A. Boden
Seattle University Law Review
The Administration's Faith-Based Initiatives would fail a constitutional challenge under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Applying the three-pronged test developed in Lemon v. Kurtzman and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, this Comment concludes that the Initiatives, (1) though purportedly secular, have been enacted for a sectarian purpose and are not neutral toward religion; (2) are coercive and fail to fulfill the condition of private choice because the rural poor, such as those in Franklin County, Washington, whom the Initiatives target, realistically cannot choose between non-religious and sectarian service providers; and (3) to the extent that Initiative funded programs can …
Beyond The Conventional Establishment Clause Narrative, Richard Albert
Beyond The Conventional Establishment Clause Narrative, Richard Albert
Seattle University Law Review
The article reviews of jurisprudence offers a systematic look at every Establishment Clause case to have reached the docket of the United States Supreme Court since 1947. That year is of particular significance, for it marks the incorporation of the Establishment Clause, which the Court articulated in its influential establishment case, Everson v. Board of Education. Through the intervening years there have been a total of forty-six other cases-forty-seven in total-in which establishment issues constituted the core legal quandary. The article poses two questions as it reviews the Court's opinion in each suit: (1) In contemplating the meaning of …
Public Funding For Theological Training Under The Free Exercise Clause: Pragmatic Implications And Theoretical Questions Posed To The Supreme Court In Locke V. Davey, Katie Axtell
Seattle University Law Review
Part II of this Note presents the factual background and procedural history of Davey v. Locke. Part III discusses the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Section A provides a basic background on the Supreme Court's free exercise jurisprudence. Section B applies the Court's precedent to Davey, and concludes that the Ninth Circuit sidestepped a true "prohibition" analysis. Sections A, B, and C of Part IV discuss the differing neutrality examinations within free exercise, free speech, and establishment jurisprudence, respectively. Section D discusses the overlapping application of neutrality criteria in establishment and free speech funding cases. Section E concludes …
Science, Freedom Of Conscience And The Establishment Clause, Kyron Huigens
Science, Freedom Of Conscience And The Establishment Clause, Kyron Huigens
Seattle University Law Review
The Constitution presupposes no Supreme Being, institutes no particular truth and contemplates a legal order that is similarly open. The establishment clause maintains constitutional democracy on those terms by invalidating any encroachment on freedom of conscience which religion wielding the power of the state can devise. This Article is an extended defense of that strong conception of the establishment clause. It is in part a reply to those, like Louisell, who have argued that strict construction theories of the clause "establish" something called "The Religion of Secular Humanism." It is in part an attack on the idea that the establishment …